Featured essay
Ukraine's Cyber Forces bill: who commands the hackers?
Part 3 of 3Ukraine encouraged volunteer hackers to join its fight against Russia. Four years on, parliament is weighing a military Cyber Force with a civilian reserve. The open…
Recent essays
Power
Silver Fox: China places 63 malware suspects under criminal compulsory measuresPart 2 of 3
China's Ministry of Public Security says it has put 63 people under criminal compulsory measures in five malware cases. Security vendors track Silver Fox as a threat actor that deploys ValleyRAT, but the ministry's…
Power
VasyGrek arrests: how Russia polices its own hackersPart 1 of 3
The VasyGrek case fits a pattern in which the line Russia draws around cybercrime runs through the victim, not the crime. A rare arrest of a group that hit Russian firms shows where tolerance may end, and how little…
Money
Binance hack: who decides when stolen crypto is frozen?
Stablecoin issuers froze about $3bn of the funds stolen from Binance within hours, according to Binance. Their freezing powers are written down. What outsiders cannot see is how those powers are applied, and who can…
Technology
Maven's AI agents: who is accountable when they fail?Part 3 of 3
Anthropic told courts it cannot alter Claude once it is inside a classified Pentagon system, and an appeals court has now ruled that how a laboratory trains its models can itself be a supply chain risk. Military AI…
Ethics
Human control of military AI: safeguard or weak point?Part 2 of 3
Human judgment is the main safeguard in US military AI, and the thing a fast, jammed battlefield wears away. Pentagon policy requires only appropriate human judgment, while Palantir says Maven cuts two weeks of staff…
Power
The Camorra has gone digital. So has the state.
In Naples, organised crime uses drones, encrypted phones, online betting and social media to extend its reach. Italian investigators are responding with intercepted communications, financial intelligence and AI.…
Palantir Maven after Claude: the swap, by Palantir's account
6 min readStarshield speed limit: why drones depend on satellite links
6 min readYandex strikes: did they cut Russian disinformation?
5 min readCockroach Janta Party: built online, tracked offline
9 min readThe Pentagon can order an execution. Can it order YouTube to show it?
7 min readSeries
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